Monday, June 17, 2013

Anti-Firearm Mindset Permeates Schools

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, automobile accidents are the leading cause of teenage deaths in the United States.

Some 2,700 teens aged 16-19 died in car crashes in 2010, the most recent year for which the federal agency's website has figures, and 282,000 were injured. So, the nation's schools have rightly implemented programs that teach teens to be safer drivers.

Yet, suppose educators instead declared that cars themselves were harmful instruments of death and destruction with no useful purpose.

Then they began punishing students at all ages, even down to kindergarten level, for such "offenses" as drawing pictures of cars, bringing toy cars to school or even mentioning the word "car."

You'd likely think this was an extreme overreaction, a textbook example of irrational behavior that was likely to punish innocent students for harmless words and actions.

Now, substitute the word "guns" for "cars," and you have a description of what appears to be a widespread mindset on the part of school officials nationwide that one psychologist and family doctor has called "psychotic."

The damage my fellow educators do to the credibility of our profession....

This is my favorite quote from the article:

In truth, there are effective and ineffective ways of addressing any
problem. Schools' "zero tolerance" policies that punish children for
words and actions that create absolutely no danger to anyone are not
only unjust, they border on ideologically motivated child abuse.